Most "modern" classical music being made?

[Thatfabulousalien]

In many cases I hear perhaps too much strands of the 50s (or even those 2nd Viennese buggers who are 'ole skeletons by now). It's like it's hard not to associate with things that happened many years ago, idk it's probably just me suffering from burn out 


Any recommendations for this bizarre request?

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

Music from the 50s to me sounds like music from the 50s. The most modern music being composed today is anything being composed today. The request is bizarre because I don't know what music you are listening to from the most recent years which sounds like whatever music from the 50s you are talking about. Darmstadt? You seem to like that stuff, from what I recall.

I can only recommend composers I like and I have no idea whether you will perceive it as sounding like 50s music because you haven't given any examples to illustrate your point.

Daniel Blinkhorn
Natasha Barrett
Brett Dean
Olga Neuwirth
Rebecca Saunders
Liza Lim
Matthias Pintscher
Isabel Mundry
Charlotte Bray
Beat Furrer
Dai Fujikura
Helen Grime

Knock yourself out

[Maestro267]

This seems like the sort of indecipherable thread that snyprrr would be proud of.

[Karl Henning]

I just finished a scene from the ballet yesterday.

Is it modern? (love the scare-quotes, BTW

Should I care?

[Mandryka]

I had a strange experience a couple of weeks ago. Someone on another forum asked people to suggest contemporary  century masterpieces. People duly came forth with stuff by Eötvös, Lerdahl, Abrahamsen, Adams, Dutilleux, and I checked some of them out on YouTube,

They all sounded dated to me. Nice, well made, easy to listen to,

but like no SHOCK OF THE NEW.

[Karl Henning]

I don't know 

Fair enough  0:)

[Karl Henning]

but like no SHOCK OF THE NEW.

Aye, there has been this Sensationalist demand for quite a while;  quaintly, it has roots back in the 19^th century.  Supply will meet the demand, and then there is no complaint when composers gin up the musical equivalent of the National Enquirer.

Several ensembles dedicated to new music have no use for my work.  No SHOCK OF THE NEW.  Not sexy enough.

So, again:  should I care?

[Karl Henning]

I know the feeling, has happened to me too. It's a part of the frustrations of being a composer (at least for me), as falling into the trap of just ripping off some composer from 50/60 years ago 

That is the essential fallacy (the "Anxiety of Influence"):  that if the music does not SHOCK!!! as being NEW!!! it must just be retread of music which has been written before.

This is purest bullshit.

[Karl Henning]

That's not what I meant 

Well, I'm glad.

So, what do you mean? 

[Maestro267]

I just finished a scene from the ballet yesterday.

Is it modern? (love the scare-quotes, BTW

Should I care?

Of course it's modern! You finished it yesterday! 

[Karl Henning]

Of course it's modern! You finished it yesterday! 

Call me old-school, but I think your remark would work without the emoticon.

[Karl Henning]

[Mahlerian]

I know the feeling, has happened to me too. It's a part of the frustrations of being a composer (at least for me), as falling into the trap of just ripping off some composer from 50/60 years ago 

btw though, I still have to compulsion to find new classical music that scars me but maybe I'm desensitized? 



Still, I don't know what this thread is about   

If you're looking to be permanently shocked by the newness of modern music, I have a suggestion.

Leave modern music aside for a month.  Don't listen to any of it.  Fully absorb the principles and aesthetics of earlier periods, enjoy their beauty and daring on their own terms.  Then come back to it, and acknowledge both the differences and similarities.

If you're looking for a permanent state of unfamiliarity, constant re-listening will only provide diminishing returns.

As for myself, shock and alienation are not at all of interest, either in the music I try to write, or in the music I prefer listening to.  Do I enjoy finding wonderfully fresh aesthetic experiences?  Of course.  But the very real visceral impact of the new is fleeting, while the beauty and power of a masterpiece stay with me for years to come.

[Mandryka]

If you're looking to be permanently shocked by the newness of modern music, I have a suggestion.

Leave modern music aside for a month.  Don't listen to any of it.  Fully absorb the principles and aesthetics of earlier periods, enjoy their beauty and daring on their own terms.  Then come back to it, and acknowledge both the differences and similarities.

If you're looking for a permanent state of unfamiliarity, constant re-listening will only provide diminishing returns.

As for myself, shock and alienation are not at all of interest, either in the music I try to write, or in the music I prefer listening to.  Do I enjoy finding wonderfully fresh aesthetic experiences?  Of course.  But the very real visceral impact of the new is fleeting, while the beauty and power of a masterpiece stay with me for years to come.

Yes shocked is a good word, I should have said something like "the stimulation of the new"

[Karl Henning]

Yes shocked is a good word, I should have said something like "the stimulation of the new"

Now, you see, I find your sentence contradictory.  I don't think shocked is at all a good word for this experience.  But then, my mother is a retired nurse, and I may be thinking of shock too medically.

[Mandryka]

Now, you see, I find your sentence contradictory.  I don't think shocked is at all a good word for this experience.  But then, my mother is a retired nurse, and I may be thinking of shock too medically.

It is contradictory, I meant to write "Yes shocked is not a good word, I should have said something like "the stimulation of the new" It's not easy on an ipad you know.


In fact we seem all be agreeing with each other. That can't be right!
"

[Karl Henning]

In fact we seem all be agreeing with each other. That can't be right!

Oh, but it might be!

[millionrainbows]

Just the fact that we see history in this way, as observers (music of the 50's), and that we now have full access to all periods of history and recorded music, is a dead giveaway that that we are in the post-modern era. That's why there is nothing "new and shocking," because "history"is no longer progressing or moving like it once did; we are not immersed "in" history any more, we are outside of it, observing it.

There is no solution to this dilemma: I see the question itself as a lament of the post-modern listener.

I see the most "modern" music made today as necessarily commenting in some way on history, or in "staking out territory" of historic style or idea. Therefore, it cannot be totally new.

To reach the new, we have to leave "history" and turn to new sounds, new technology; perhaps electronics, alternate tunings. Still, whatever "art" content that is created will be post-modern./

[amw]

I've not heard a lot of new music that has immediately struck me as being something "new" or "original"... which can mean something unconnected to anything that came before, but also can mean something that might show influences from the past in terms of style but is unique in terms of substance.  Instead, a lot of what I hear is like "oh, it's Berio's Sequenza I, just slightly different and for the trumpet" or "oh, it's some Lachenmann extended techniques folded into the general style of Shostakovich" or whatever.

Not that there isn't music that is more interesting out there, but it is a rarity.

[Karl Henning]

I've not heard a lot of new music that has immediately struck me as being something "new" or "original"... which can mean something unconnected to anything that came before, but also can mean something that might show influences from the past in terms of style but is unique in terms of substance.

Good point.